Their neuroses or psychoses. Whether they came out with fire or played so lethargically at the start, the straits would soon turn dire.

After their 106-103 loss to the Denver Nuggets in Game 2 of the Western Conference finals Thursday night, there were no questions afterward about their mettle.

At the end of two of the most entertaining games of the year at Staples Center, only one thing had been firmly settled: This ain’t going to be easy.

“It’s playoff basketball,” Kobe Bryant said after the Lakers lost, 106-103, in Game 2 of the Western Conference finals. “Bounce of a ball here we’re up 2-0, bounce of the ball there, they win Game 1. Every game sometimes depends on the bounce of the ball.”

Officially, it’s been playoff basketball for over a month now. But even as the undermanned Rockets pushed the Lakers to seven games in the Western Conference semifinals, it felt like it was more about the Lakers and their issues.

Whether their toughest opponent on any given night would be complacency, hubris or rust.

Every once in a while Aaron Brooks would creep into the scouting report, but for the most part it was a race to see if the Lakers could overcome their own shortcomings in time to stage a great NBA Finals against LeBron James and his band of Cavaliers from Cleveland.

After the Orlando Magic’s shocking upset in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals and the Nuggets’ win to tie the best-of-seven series at 1-1 Thursday night at Staples Center, neither of those once-forgone scenarios seems as sound.

“You guys can go home and play `NBA Live’ if you want to see (Kobe vs. LeBron),” Nuggets forward Kenyon Martin said. “Us and Orlando are going to have something to say about that.”

After the way Bryant and Nuggets forward Carmelo Anthony have been going at each other – after two rounds it’s Anthony 73, Bryant 72 on the scorecards – by the time this series is over, there may not even be a need for some sort of ultimate showdown between Bryant and James in the Finals.

After spending his first five years in the NBA trying to prove he didn’t peak as a college freshman at Syracuse, Anthony seems reborn as a player.

He’s committed to defense and rebounding, he takes good shots, he even shrugs off poor starts like he had Thursday (1-for-6, two points in the first quarter as the Lakers jumped out to a 31-23 lead).

“I think this team last year, the lead probably would have went from 10 to 20. I’d be sitting here talking to you about a loss last year,” Anthony said afterwards. “This year our team is so much more mentally tough. We came a long way.”

So has Anthony, who perhaps more than any other Nugget has embraced coach George Karl’s call for defensive intensity.

Anthony seemed to guard every one of the Lakers starting five at one point or another Thursday night. He’s a big 6-foot-8 and a big 230 pounds. So at one moment he was trying to push the Lakers’ 7-footer Pau Gasol off the low block; the other, he was sticking a hard in Bryant’s face, trying to distract him as he rose up for a jump shot.

“I think I’m more impressed by his defense on Kobe than his offense,” Nuggets guard J.R. Smith said. “Everybody knows ‘Melo can score, but everyone’s been questioning his defense. He’s standing up to the challenge.

“I think people are starting to stop comparing LeBron to Carmelo; people are starting to push him way over ‘Melo, and I think ‘Melo’s getting tired of it.”

Whatever the case, it’s refreshing to have something to debate other than whether the Lakers “played hard tonight” or not.

Which is pretty much exactly what the Lakers did to the Nuggets in the first game of this series. After Denver controlled the action for most of the first 3-1/2 quarters, the Lakers out-kicked them down the stretch, relying on Bryant’s heroics and Trevor Ariza’s sublime steal to ice the win.

In Game 2, the teams seemed to switch roles, but acted out a very similar script.

“Yeah, they probably returned the favor,” Bryant admitted after Game 2.

There will be plenty of stories written after Game 2 chiding the Lakers for failing to land a knockout punch after building a 41-27 lead in the second quarter.

If there’s a criticism to answer after this game, it is probably that one.

But it’s fairly clear we’ve reached a stage in the playoffs, one round earlier than anyone expected, where the Lakers’ opponent will not be content to wait around and see if the Lakers will have issues.

From here on out, this is ain’t going to be as easy.

“I told the team, after watching the (Cleveland-Orlando) game last night, that I really think the four best teams in the league are playing,” Denver coach George Karl said.

“Everybody had a favorite. But I think we’re all pretty close. In the next two weeks two are going to be eliminated, and after that someone’s going to win a championship.”